


Vertigo

by ZenithMaguire



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Awkwardness, M/M, Masturbation, One Shot, Phone Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 12:48:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8162555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZenithMaguire/pseuds/ZenithMaguire
Summary: They were just so much better at this when they couldn't see the fear in each other's eyes.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story is as irredeemable as Reese feels without Finch, and as preposterous as Finch feels whenever John takes his shirt off. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Harold pulled himself across the bed, reached for the phone and managed to answer on the second ring, flicking the light on and fumbling for his glasses, his heart plummeting. This couldn't mean anything good.

'John, are you ok?'

'Sorry Finch, didn’t mean to scare you. Nothing life or death. Were you asleep?' 

'Near enough.' Harold levered himself up a little further, frowning, relieved and puzzled. 'To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?'

Normally Reese responded to his acidulous little barbs with amusement, but his voice sounded strange when he spoke, low and free of affectation. Unless that was a new affectation he'd just adopted. Perhaps he'd called to give it a test run. 

'I wanted to hear your voice. And if I don't tell you when I want something, it's not fair to blame you when I don't get it. I’m tired of being angry with you all the time, when it’s not your fault. If you want me to hang up I will, and we can forget about it, I promise.’ 

Harold's chest was tight. He had that feeling of being about to step off a precipice, when you're cold with terror, but a part of you is screaming at you to move, to plunge and close the distance as quickly as possible. Reese had been difficult recently, or rather more difficult - or perhaps simply more Reese, Harold sometimes thought. Mercurial and unfathomable, slipping from solicitousness to brooding from day to day. He had resisted the impulse to take it personally, wanting neither to credit himself with undue importance, nor to dignify such behaviour with a response.

'Can I have that, Harold? Will you let me hear your voice for a while?'

This was obviously a dream, so he might as well ride it out. Though thinking that hadn't woken him up. Perhaps he'd been drugged again. Harold tried to remember the techniques for determining whether or not one was in a dream, but he decided to answer Reese instead, for some reason he elected not to examine too closely. 

'Alright.' He was hesitant, drawing out the word, but he could tell himself it wasn't costing him anything, except possibly the ability to tell which way was up. And if he hung up now the curiosity might kill him. 

'Is your light on? I thought I heard a switch.' This, casually, as if it were a perfectly ordinary question.

'Yes, it is.' What on earth?

'And you've put your glasses back on?' 

'Yes...' This was peculiar to say the least. Definitely a dream. 

'I bet your hair is all mussed up like it gets when you fall asleep. I love when it looks like that. I want to muss it up every time I see you.'

'Mr Reese...'

'Call me John again, like you did when you picked up. When you were worried about me. It's so beautiful, when you say my name like that.' He sounded wistful enough to be sincere, Harold thought, even if the sentiment was highly unexpected.

'John. What are you...have you been drinking?'

'I was thinking about it earlier. And a lot, recently. But then I decided not to be an ungrateful cowardly asshole. Just talk to me a little. Please. Do you want me to beg you? Because I will. Right now I don't care.' 

'I'll talk to you, if you insist. But I need to know what on earth this is,' said Harold, his voice rising in pitch a little.

'It's the middle of the night, I'm lying in bed in the dark, naked, and hard, and I can’t stop thinking about you. It's exactly what it sounds like.'

Harold simply stopped breathing. It was as if a gust of wind had simply smacked all the air out of him. For a second he thought his heart had stopped too, and then there it was, pounding hard, and he sucked in a breath.

'This is some game...' He sounded squeaky to himself, his throat tight.

'If you were here I'd show you it wasn't. I wish you were here. You can't say you haven't thought about it. Be honest, you can't tell me you've never looked, never wondered what it would be like? And you know I have too.' John was a little out of breath, liked he had to force the words out. 

Harold had certainly never agreed to be honest, thank the heavens above, though he had undertaken not to lie. There was a distinction. He probably should have placed a more stringent limit on that rather undefined promise, since John's assessment of the situation was entirely accurate. He couldn't deny it. It seemed like every time he looked up, Reese's eyes were on him, studying, evaluating, then sliding away into that one eighth of a smile that drove Harold to distraction. He'd been feeling himself slipping closer to - he wasn't sure what, just that he was clinging to proprieties in the hope that the act of putting faith in them would somehow make them into a defence. He knew he was fooling himself; he knew he was weak with it, getting weaker, and he could feel John was on the point of saying something every time a conversation fell quiet. They both knew denial was pointless, by this time, but when had Harold ever let that stop him? He didn't seem to have any words at all available at this particular juncture, however, rendering such considerations futile. 

'Harold?' John's voice sounded like it was coming from a long way down.

Harold wasn’t going to answer the question, and he felt acutely how clear an answer that was. 'I...I'm not exactly a phone sex aficionado, John.'

This got a little chuckle. 'And there I thought I'd finally figured out how you earned your billions. There's nothing wrong with sticking to the classics. Tell me what you’re wearing, Harold.'

‘Really?!’

‘Really. I want to know how you look right now.’

This was truly absurd. More than absurd: surreal. But if John could tell him, quite in earnest it seemed, that he was nude and aroused - that image was enough to make him stop and blink for a moment - why couldn't he respond? Of course there were many reasons why he shouldn’t, but none of them were making it down from his frontal cortex to his vocal chords, apparently. And they certainly had no chance of venturing any lower than that at present.

'I'm wearing dark blue pyjamas, cotton, with a narrow white stripe. Not exactly the stuff of erotic fantasy I'm afraid, John.' He hated the rigid formality of his intonation, too tense to remember not to be sardonic. 

'Wouldn’t that depend on whose fantasies they were? You always look good to me, Harold. All bundled up and neat, rows of buttons fastening you up into a beautiful little parcel, like a present. I bet you smell good too. That citrus shampoo you use.'

Harold was surprised; John had noticed that? He'd stood behind his chair, leaning over him, so many times, making Harold painfully aware of his proximity. He was...breathing him in? Remembering how he smelled, later? Harold couldn't very well deceive himself, he was aching to touch himself, so he did, letting out a little gasp. 

'Harold, I wish I knew how it felt to be pressed up warm against your chest, between your thighs. I've wanted to, so many times, wanted to bury my face in your lap, unbutton you and kiss you, lick your skin and bite you, close my eyes and slide my hands under all those layers.'

Harold yelped. It was the only word for it, unfortunately. How undignified.

'God, Harold, are you touching yourself? Tell me, please.'

'Yes. You’ve only yourself to blame, you know,’ said Harold, a little snippy. John breathed out, half-laughing, half-sighing, deep and ragged. Harold was tentative, but he couldn’t not ask. Well, he was only human. ‘Are you?'

'Not unless you say I can.'

'It's your cock, Mr. Reese.'

John was too far gone to laugh, he just moaned and for a second all Harold could hear was John's breath stuttering, over the rustling of his own sheets.

'Tell me what you're thinking, Mr Reese.'

'Harold...' Reese’s voice sounded oddly fragile, panting in Harold's ear. 

'Tell me.' All of a sudden, Harold felt entirely on top of the situation. How strange, he mused, before the thought slipped away entirely. 

'I'm thinking about...something I've wanted so many times...you ordering me to take off my pants, your hands on me, bending me over your desk so you can fuck me, holding me in place by my shirttails, grabbing my hair to pull my head back, pushing into me until I'm sobbing, making me scream out your name, making me feel like I belong to you-'

Harold let out a truly embarrassing whimper, not loud but long, the sound wrung out of him as his body wrenched upwards. For a minute or so he was just breathing, the phone slipping down to the pillow.

'Harold? Harold did you...' John's voice was dark and intent. 

'Yes. Have...did...' His breath hadn't quite come back. 

'Not yet.'

'It's a pity it's so late, otherwise I would tell you to stop immediately and wait for me, to kneel at the foot of the bed, forbidden to touch, to come until I got there. I'd make you prepare yourself for me, so you'd be wet and open, and I wouldn't have to speak or do anything, I could just walk in and nothing would get in the way of my having you. Yes John, that's right, come for me. Good, that's good.' Harold tilted the phone away from his ear slightly when John's voice built to a cry, but kept speaking over the impossibly sweet little sighs that followed. It was extremely gratifying, if profoundly bewildering, to think he'd made that strong, gorgeous man lose control. He couldn’t help wondering how loud he could make John in person, if he could do that just with his voice. 

'Oh god, Harold, jesus christ, oh...fucking hell.' He sounded distinctly shaky. Harold couldn't help but smile at his entirely flattering lack of coherence. 

'Language, Mr Reese.'

That got a wobbly little laugh. 

'Harold, I think I should warn you, the next time we have a moment to ourselves, I'm going to kiss you. And then I'm going to kneel in front of you and suck your dick.'

Harold felt dizzy for a minute, he could almost see it, John looking up at him from under drooping eyelids, long fingers touching his skin, the way John’s hair would feel under Harold's hands, the way he'd groan at the touch. Harold finally got himself together. 

'Well. Thank you for the warning, Mr Reese,' he managed, not quite as dryly as he’d have liked.

'Thank you. For everything.' His voice was loose, mellowed, Harold noted with a level of satisfaction he considered only reasonable, under the circumstances.

'You should get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow.' Harold was yawning himself. 'Goodnight, Mr Reese.'

'Goodnight, Harold.'

Harold was just shutting his glasses in their case when a text from Reese made his phone buzz. 

-Just so you know, Harold: when I suck you off, I'm going to make you come in my mouth, and then I'm going to swallow every drop. And I can't wait.-

Oh, dear god. 

-GO TO SLEEP JOHN-

-Anything you want, Harold. Sweet dreams.-

He could almost hear John smiling through the brief line of text. Harold was out cold the minute the light clicked off.

\-----

The next morning John walked into the library, placing a box of donuts on Finch’s desk, with just a tiny hint of a flourish.

‘We have a new number, Finch?’ His voice was controlled, a good impression of normality.

‘It seems not, Mr Reese.’ Harold sat up a little straighter, but didn’t turn away from the computer. 

John stepped closer, and when Harold finally dared to look John was wearing the most dangerous smile he’d ever seen.

**Author's Note:**

> Well this was a stray bunny that refused to be made into anything remotely sensible, so I just left it as a bit of fun. What on *earth* got into John? Maybe he had a bump on the head that day that went unnoticed, idk!


End file.
